WHITTIER – A woman’s body lay in the back seat of a car for days, parked on a busy street surrounded by apartments and homes.

But no one discovered the decomposing body until a passerby called deputies early Monday morning about a smell.

Who the woman is, how she died and why she ended up in the back seat of a BMW in the 11700 block of Santa Gertrudes Avenue in this unincorporated stretch of Whittier remained a mystery Tuesday.

Authorities are checking if she’s the woman reported missing from Pico Rivera on June 4. The 1994 BMW where the body was discovered is part of a missing person’s report, according to coroner’s officials.

But sheriff’s homicide detectives declined to release any details about the missing person case until they get an identification on the body.

Detective Steve Blagg said the car, which he only identified as a 4-door vehicle, was parked on the side of the road just south of an apartment complex.

Somebody walking around at 2:20 a.m., Monday smelled something and called 9-1-1, Blagg said. He added that it was a deputy who found the body.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have an identification. … we don’t have time of death or cause of death,” Blagg said.

Craig Harvey, spokesman with the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner, said investigators are trying to get dental records to see if the body listed as Jane Doe 29 is that of the missing woman. The autopsy was being conducted Tuesday.

Harvey said Jane Doe 29 was discovered fully clothed. She stood 65 inches tall and weighed about 132 pounds. Because of the condition of the body, investigators were unable to discern her race.

“The body was found in a decomposed state which makes identification visually impossible so (we’re) seeking dental records,” Harvey said.

On a Tuesday morning, parked cars lined one side of Santa Gertrudes Avenue as traffic zipped by.

Several residents on Santa Gertrudes Avenue and nearby streets were surprised when told about the grisly discovery.

Joey Gaber said he didn’t see anything but did smell something unusual late Sunday night. He didn’t think anything about it.

“Something really disgusting,” Gaber said.

Lisa Lopez, who lives a couple of blocks south of where the body was found, didn’t smell anything and hadn’t heard about the body.

“That is really scary,” she said.

Lopez said anything strange would have been reported if the car had been parked in a residential area. She pointed out that there’s so much traffic on Santa Gertrudes Avenue.

“I know down here if we don’t identify anybody’s car, someone would call (deputies),” Lopez said.How a body in a parked car could remain undiscovered for days in a busy neighborhood isn’t necessarily a case of apathy, according to a sociologist.

Karen Sternheimer, associate professor of Sociology at USC, said a similar situation recently happened in New York.

The decomposing body of George Morales, 59, was found June 3 in the back seat of a minivan when officials tried to tow the vehicle which was parked under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The van sported parking tickets.

Police said Morales died from heart disease and that the body wasn’t discovered for weeks because the van’s windows were tinted and parking officers don’t normally search cars.

Still, Sternheimer said such discoveries are not common.

“But on a busy street I think it’s more a likely place where this would happen than a quiet residential street,” she said.

More so she said if a lot of cars are usually parked on the street.

“It’s not clear too if the body was visible from the car,” Sternheimer said.

“I think too people have a tendency to mind their own business. In this case if people are accustomed to seeing different cars (there) not knowing whose it is, they may not have looked closely at the car.”

Locally, the New York case bears a close resemblance to that of Walter Eugene Smith, a 72-year-old transient whose body was found July 22, 2008 inside a Lincoln parked in Pico Rivera with a parking ticket on the windshield.

Deputies said there was no evidence the parking officer gave the citation while the body was in the car.

Smith was slightly reclined in the seat with his head against the headrest. His death was ruled as natural causes.

Ruby Gonzales started working for the company in 1991. Since then she has written about cities, school districts, crimes, cold cases, courts, the San Gabriel River, local history, anime, insects, forensics and the early days of the Internet when people still referred to it as the "information superhighway." Her current beat includes breaking news, crimes and courts for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News and Whittier Daily News. When not in crime reporter mode, she frequents the remaining bookstores in the San Gabriel Valley, haunts craft stores or gets dragged to eateries by a relative who is a foodie.